JILL DOESN'T COUNT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22524, 15 September 1936, Page 17

JILL DOESN'T COUNT

A ROMANTIC STORY OF RIVAL SISTERS

CHAPTER XXll.—(Continued) Sally blushed and turned away. Jill looked after her with hurt eyes. : "Oliver, you weren't very nice to her," she said. "I'm sorry. But what's blio doing here?"

" I wanted to come," admitted Sally. " Duty combined with pleasure." " I wasn't thinking of duty," said Terence. " I was thinking of you. I wanted a chance of saying good-bye to you properly. I'm going first thing to-morrow morning.'' "So soon!" said Sally. " Yes. My time's not up till the end of the week, but as it happened the medical agents rang me up this afternoon. A doctor I did 'locum' for before I came here has died suddenly. They asked me if I could possibly go and take over. With Vereker being so fit, there didn't seem any reason why I shouldn't. So I asked him, and he was quite pleased. I'll pack to-night, when I get back. I'm sorry to leave you, Sally." " But I'm going, too," said Sally. " You?" said Terence Wilson sharply. " Where?"

I "She had an accident. She has been staying here for a week. I expect she'll go now."

"I wouldn't like to push her off," said Oliver, "but I rather hope she goes. Oh, I expect she's a nice child, but I do. hate the films, Jill. The more I know of them, the worse I feel about them. You tell me it's silly of me, but I can't help it. I don't believe anybody ever came into contact with them without being harmed. Call me narrow-minded, if you like. I'm thankful you'd the sense to take up dispensing, Jill." "Are you?" said Jill slowly.

" To do a job of work," said Sally. " Quite time, too." " You mean you've got another film engagement?" said Terence. " I'll probably get one, as soon as I see my agent," said Sally airily. "And until then, there's always crowd work." " Do you really think Mrs. Vereker will let vou go?" said Terence. " She'll have to," said Sally. " She's been too good to me, anyway. It wasn't just that she rescued me once from the river. It didn't seem so difficult drowning then. I—l honestly think I might have tried it again, if she hadn't brought me here and looked after me, and paid my landlady and generally been a sort of angel from heaven to me. That's why I'm not going to hang around, now that her husband is back again. Oh, I'll find a good lie to tell her, a better lie than I've told you 1 But two's company and three's none in the Vereker household at present." " They've been married nearly a year now," said Terence. " You'd have thought they'd have got over that sort of thing by this time." , "In my opinion," said Sally, they ro just beginning it." " What do you mean?" said Terence. " They're falling in love," said Sally. " Or at least he is. I guess Jill's been in love with him all the time. But I ve watched Dr. Vereker and I know the svmptoms. He's always watching her. When she's out of the room he s only half alive, listening for her to come in again. And he looks at her as if he were seeing her for the first time, ana was surprised at what he is discovering. I don't believe he ever loved her before. I believe this is all just new to him. Is this the farm you have to visit?" „. "It is," said Terence, pulling up at a gate. " This discussion shall be continued later." , The door of the farm was opened, and an anxious-looking mother was awaiting him. Sally was left alone. He was a long time in returning, and she had time to think. The farm dated from the Stuart days. There was a stone roof overgrown with lichen. A pear tree against the grey-brown walls pattered blossoms on to the grass below it. There were mullioned windows, and some ot the farm children were still U P> P' a y _ ing at a see-saw. The light of the sunset was reflected in the duckpond under the shadow of the hayrick. An elder girl appeared in the doorway. , ~,, , "Chris, Molly 1 Come in to bedl she called. > , The children came, rosy sturdy children who smiled shyly at Sally as they passed her. Suddenly she felt her eyes moisten. This was home —home in its sweetest and deepest sense. Even the sick child upstairs was a tender part of it. Here tired men came home to rest in the evenings, here a woman did a woman's work, cooking and sewing and looking after a house and tending children. One could grow old here very happily, to the time of the passing of the seasons. A star came out over the housetop. A light appeared in an upstairs room. A bat flew across the garden. It was the sort of "set" Sally had seen often enough on the films.. Never in real life had she been at the same time so near and so far from it. To-morrow she would be back in London again interviewing agents, grabbing at a guinea a day for crowd work, frightened, always frightened. She would be a girl on her own. And why any girl ever wants to be a girl on her own, I can't imagine, thought Sally fiercely. The farmhouse door opened. Terrence came out of it. The woman's face, which had been anxious before, was now smiling. "Thank you so very much, doctor," she said.

"Of course T am. But I didn't mean to be unkind to that girl. I'll be very sweet to her next time I see her." He was. Luncheon was a cheerful meal. There were four of them: Dr. Wilson, Sally, Jill and Oliver. They all seemed to have a good deal to talk about. The soup, the omelet, the cold meat were excellent, Oliver at his best, gay and comradely and contented. Grand to see him so well again, thought Jill. Great to have him again! Then a shadow crossed her face. She wished that ho knew about "Dear Little Plain Girl." She had meant to tell him at once, but now she changed her mind. She would wait for a suitable moment. He was so happy and cheerful. She would not spoil the excitement of his homecoming. It would be, after all, a good three months before Freyne's play was released. It was stupid of Oliver to feel so strongly about the subject, but he had reason to hate the films, of course. She remembered Viva, whom she still believed to be in Paris. The smile left her eyes. Oliver himself was surprised at the feeling of happiness he had in returning to Charnford. In Biarritz it had seemed an ordinary place. He had left ;t in the dark weeks of March. Now April had come to England. Hie doors into his garden at the back of the house stood open, and the bulbs Jill had- planted there were all blooming and agrowing. And he felt well and strong, and ready for work and for struggle. It was just a year now since he had come out of prison, a year of crowded life. He remembered how abysmally unhappy he had been. Had it not been for Jill, he would not have been here at all. She had taken his life into her small hands, and she had guided it and tended it. And now the practice was going to do, his patients had a restored confidence in him. He had put his infatuation for Viva behind him, and the future omens were propitious. Surely even his house looked better, brighter and sprucer than he remembered it. As for Jill . . .

"What have you been doing to yourself?" he asked. "How do you mean?" asked Jill. "I don't "know. You look different somehow. You're doing your hair in a new way, aren't you?"

"I had a cheap 'perm'," said Jill evasively.

Her hair had actually been 'permed,' as qnly Miss Cowan at the studios could 'perm' it. "I like that red frock, too," said Oliver. new, isn't it?" "You can get things for almost nothing at this time of tho .year," said Jill "It looks expensive. You're the world's wonder, really! Lucky I am to have you!" " Oliver, do you really feel that?" said Jill;

" Never so much as I feel it now," said Oliver. " But I've always known, of course."

He followed her ipto the dispensary. She was putting on her white overall. He was suddenly overwhelmed with tenderness for her. Dear Jill, a man would be a cad that could hurt her? Thank Heaven he had run away from Biarritz! She never need know how near he had been to falling. That's over, at last, he thought.

" Jill, my dear —" he began. Dr. Wilson came hurrying into the dispensary. " Oh, Mrs. Vereker, would you mind awfully mixing a bottle-of Mist: Alb: for Mrs. Jenkinson ? They're calling at five for it."

" I'll do it now," said Jill. She lifted down a stock bottle from the shelf. •

It must be wonderful, thought Sally, to be able to make people happy again, as Terence can do.

" Jill," said Oliver under his breath, " is this our house, or isn't it? When are we going to have it to ourselves again?" Jill said nothing, but a smile curved her lips. She would never be pretty, but for a passing second she was almosi beautiful.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Sally," he said now as he joined her. "The kid had dislocated and broken his arm. It took a bit of time putting it right. He'll be fine now. I hope you haven't got cold, or anything." "I'm not a bit cold," said Sally. "You sound rather as if you were," said Terence.

CHAPTER xxrn, T,IFE IN THE BAW

It was growing dark now. Ho couldn't see her face. Sally bit her lip. She wasn't going to let him know she had been near tears, not she I You kept up, you didn't go whining about your luck to people who knew enough of the world's misfortunes already. This was a joy ride, this was. Be bright, girl 1 Men like you to be bright.

" Miss Bryant," said young Dr. Wilson, rather formally, that night after supper. " I have a call to make at a farm about three miles out of town. I wonder if you would care to come. It's a pleasant evening for a run." " I should enjoy a breath of fresh air very much, Dr.' Wilson," said Sally, with equal ceremony, and a certain amount of emphasis. Dr. Wilson grinned. " I always think of you as Sally," he admitted. , " I sometimes think of you as Terence," said Sally. " Well, that's a beginning, at any rate," said Dr. Wilson. For some reason Sally blushed. Then she ran upstairs very quickly to put her hat on. Dr. Wilson was waiting for her when she came down. The daylight saving period had just begun, and the added hour of daylight was very welcome. Everything Becmed alive, it only can be in an English April. Terence's shoulder touched Sally's companionably as they drove out of Charnford. , , ~ a i' m glad you asked mo to come, snid Sally. " I guess those two have a whole lot to say to each other. I like Dr. Vereker, though he did look at me as if I were something washed up by tho tide, when he first saw me. Of course," »he added wryly, " that's what I am." . " Did you mention that film business to him at all?" asked Terence curiously. , " No. Jill asked me not to. She says B b* wants to tell him herself." " She asked me the same thing, said Terence. " It seems Vereker loathes the picture?, and anything connected with them. He'll have to know some dav, of course." it Oh, yes. Jill will tell him soon, said Sally. " But I understand her feelings. There are times and for making confessions. Actually, she s a perfectlv marvellous actress, but I know how he'feels. I hate pictures, too. I'd loathe to share anybody I loved with the public. But I guess the money that Jill has made will be pretty useful." " I guess it will," said Dr. Wilson. " Vereker's illness must have been expensive. But don't let's talk about the Verekers. Nice of us to leave them alone, isn't it? That the only reason you came for a drive-with me, Sally?"

But somehow she couldn't think of anything to say, nor any way of being bright at all. She again denied rather awkwardly being cold. And so they drove away from the farm and toward the road. The sun had nearly set now. It spread over the fields a roseate, orange glory. And Terence spoke in an odd sort of voice: '"Well, to contiue our discussion!" "I've forgotten what we were talking of," said Sally. "We were discussing the Verekers — and love. Can you always recognise the symptoms of falling in love, Sally?" "Well, they're often pretty obvious," said Sally. "Then have you, by any chance, noticed that I've been falling in love, too?" asked Terence.

He had stopped the car under the shadow of a piuewood. Sally found her hand held very hard. "Sally," he said in a low voice. "I didn't mean to say anything, except to ask if I could write to you. I know a fellow hasn't a right to ask a girl, when he hasn't even a practice or anything. But I can't bear to think of you going back to that life —I can't! Look here, darling, this death vacancy I'm 'locuming'—l'm almost certain tho widow would let me have it pretty cheap, and I daresay I could get a loan from one of the medical societies, in order *to buy it. We'd be pretty poor at first, of course, but we'd be together. Would you mind, Sally? Could you bear it? Of course, I've never even asked if you liked me yet. But I love you. I loved you when T carried you upstairs, the day that Jill brought you here." "Terence," said Sally, "this isn't just the effect of that sunset, and it being spring and you and me in this car alone together?" "It certainly isn't," said Terence. "You silly cuckoo! Can't you see how I feel about you? Why I'd be asking you to marry me, if this was a gasworks, or a fish-and-chips shop in Wigan! Tho question is, aro you going to do it?"

"Oh, yes," breathed Sally, and her head snuggled down on to his shoulder. "Yes, yes, yes!"

(COPYRIGHT)

By PHYLLIS HAMBLEDON Author of "Youth Takes the Helm," etc.

CHAPTER XXIV. "I'M not COMPETING 1" "X thought," laughed Jill the next day, "that you said you'd rather marry a girl in beads from the South Sea Islands, than a girl from the films, Dr. Wilson?" "You showed me the error of my ways, Mrs. Vereker," said Terence. • "Well, I've done one good deed in the world anyway," said Jill. "I believe you'ro going to be very, very happy." "At least I'll get to the end of that cookery book now," said Sally. She was sparkling, rosy, eyes dreamy. Love is certainly a beautifier, thought Jll. She was not aAvare that that same beautifier had touched her now. She looked so alive this morning, she looked like a bride. Happiness shone out of her eyes, her smile was radiant. For she, too, thought: It is going to be all right between Oliver and me, at last! He was out now, away on his rounds, gathering up the reins of the practice. Their ordinary everyday life was again beginning. But last night had not been ordinary. They had been glad, when Sally and Terence had disappeared. They had talked and walked in the garden, among the laughing tulips, with the scent of the first blossom sweet in their nostrils, until the last rays of sunset had been lost in the first rays of moonlight. And then they had come in, and Oliver's arm had been round Jill's waist, and his eyes had been quiet and glad. Worth letting him go for a month to have him come back like this, thought Jill. And now Dr. Wilson and Sally were going away, their story too was going to have a happy ending to it. Who said the world is not good? thought Jill. She stood on the step waving to Sally and Terence, as the taxi took them to the station. She was just turning into the house again when the postman stopped with letters. It was the second delivery, and usually unimportant. This time there was a newspaper for her.

It was a copy of the Paris edition of the Daily Wire, and had been sent to her from the London office. The address 011 it M'as type-written. Jill took it into the dispensary and opened it. She wondered why it had been sent to her; then a picture caught her eyes. Celebrities at Biarritz was the heading above it. "Cocktail Hour Outside the Hotel Eclat." That was where Oliver had been staying, of course. Yes, there he was, quite plainly distinguishable. He was laughing, profile turned to the camera, obviously unaware that he was being photographed. And — Jill pui down the paper. All the colour was drained from her face. Oliver was not alone at the table under the striped umbrella. Nor was it another man whom he was laughing with. That was Viva, yes, even in the line of print under the photograph her name was mentioned: "Miss Viva Ferrand, the well-known film actress, with a Friend." That's how tfyey described her. And the friend was Oliver. -<*

Jill leant back against the dispensary table. Then happiness fell from her as if it had been a garment. So Viva had been at Biarritz with Oliver. He had never mentioned it, not once, though" she had asked him quite a lot of questions about Biarritz, and the sort of people he had been friendly with at the hotel. He had not meant her to know about Viva. Some "well-wisher," no doubt, had sent her the paper. I ought to have guessed it, thought Jill. I ought to have guessed it. After all, when he was delirious, it was Viva' whom he had called for. It was Viva who'd brought him back from the dead. Why should I have thought, just because 1 nursed him, because I looked after him, that he loved me. Love doesn't come because you call for it. He said once he was grateful to me, didn't he? You're not grateful to the people you love I said to him, at the time, that gratitude was an ugly word. But to have kissed me, as he kissed me last night—oh, that was hateful 1 To have kissed me, as if he cared I And now she was not only hurt, but she was angry—furious! It was true, the week in the studio had changed her. She was no longer Jill-Who-Didn't-Count, Jill prepared to take all the kicks and to get none of the ha'pence in return. She had been somebody in the studios, and the experience had been good for her. I don't take this lying down, thought Jill. She had left Oliver once—and had come back again. If she left him again, she would not return. "I'm not competing!" she said again. She had not made up her mind how to meet him, when he returned. Happily, perhaps, their mid-day meal that day was one of those scrambled affairs known to all doctors. There was a casualty in the surgery; an urgent message; the coroner rang up about an inquest to take place on the following Thursday. For once she was glad that their own personal relationship must be ignored. Then at the end of their meal, the telephone rang again. Jill went to answer it.

"Hullo, Jill," said a familiar voice. "Is that you, Viva?" said Jill. "I didn't know you were back in England."

"I came yesterday," said Viva. "Paris was so wet. I thought Home Sweet Home distinctly indicated. How are you both? Oliver still in Biarritz?"

"No," said Jill. "Funnily enough, he too came home yesterday." "Did he?" said Viva. "Is he quite fit again?" "Quite, thank you," said Jill. "I'm so glad. He had a narrow squeak of it, hadn't he? I'm always so glad I was able to do something about it. I say, Jill, can I come over to tea to-day?"

"Why?" said Jill. "That's not a very cordial invitation," said Viva. "Oh, come, if you like," said Jill. She put down the receiver, without waiting for Viva's answer. Lot her come! she thought. When I see them together, I'll know 1 She went back to the dining room. Oliver was gulping down a cup of coffee. He looked up irritably. "What was it? Another message? "No," said Jill. "It was Viva. She's back in England." "Back in England?" He was surprised. Jill was certain of that. She could have sworn that he wasn't acting. "Yes. She is coining to tea to-day.

"Why?" said Oliver. Extraordinary! The very same question she herself had asked! She forced herself to answer lightly. "Why not? We are sisters, you know. I thought you wanted us to be friendly." "I've seen lately that you never could be friendly," said Oliver. He rose from the table. He was looking worried. "I can't think why she wants to come," he exclaimed. "Perhaps to see how well you and I are getting on said Jill, watching him closely. "Gad, I shouldn't wonder!" said Oliver.

He caught her by the shoulders. "Look nere, Jill, I believe you're right! Well, let's shqw her, shall we? Let's show ner we're getting on mightily well together. Viva's not in our sphere of life, and she had better know it. Look nice for her, Jill, look happy! Wear that red frock you wore yesterday—l like it. You've as much personality as Viva any day, Jill. We'll let her see it! I've got to go now. That last message was an urgent one." (To be continued daily)